What are you like? Does your “exterior” show your story…? Your life journey … the things that have brought you to be the person you are at this point in your journey? What would people guess your life is like, or has been like, by just looking at you or a picture of you? We are a society that makes judgments about others in the ‘blink of an eye’. We look at them and instantly decide if they are a happy or sad person, someone who “obviously” has had it easy or one who has had a tough life, an optimist or a pessimist. But is that glimpse of just the outer person the whole story? Very rarely, I would guess, is our initial judgment a correct one.
I think it is like that with our quilts. What we show is the finished product of a beautiful creation. What is hidden is the work that it took to make that creation – the blood, sweat and tears. A quilt doesn’t make itself. There is a lot of time put into the planning of the design/pattern, then the gathering of materials and cutting out the pieces. We do our best to sew that perfect “shy” ¼” seam, fudging where we need to even though we know we cut those pieces just right. We sew, we rip, we replace, we sew again. Piece by piece the quilt grows into the final beautiful product. We then sandwich it, hiding the back side of the quilt top, put on the backing and stitch it together in a beautiful pattern that makes it secure.
There aren’t too many of us who would readily show off the underside of our quilts, where all the “inner works” are hidden, sandwiched in and safe from the view of the world, with threads dangling here and there, seams that are perfect next to those that are barely wide enough. Only we, as the maker of the quilt, know what is there, what we had to go through so the outer quilt can be the beautiful creation it was meant to be. It is a risk when we open up and show that side of the quilt… or our lives to others.
For me, personally, there are a lot of dangling threads and narrow seams as well as those that turned out just right; there have been a lot of “do overs”, or things I would love to do over. I’ve had experiences that I never dreamed I would ever have, both positive and negative; I have lost it all in order to gain it all. I have journeyed all over the US, having no one place to call home, yet have developed lasting friendships and many homes because of it. I’ve laughed, I’ve cried, I’ve endured physical and emotional pain, as well as overwhelming joys. I could go on and on. All of these things have been seamed together to help create the person I am. However,the biggest piece of this whole quilt, called ‘my life’, is not any of the things I’ve mentioned. It is the Creator, the one who has “stitched me together”. The one who did not ever give up on me, who said, “you can do it, I will help you”. The one who picked me up and carried me through when I didn’t have the strength on my own. The one who is the biggest cheerleader of all. The One who is God. Using the quilt analogy just a bit more, He is the Long Arm quilter – the one who puts the final touches on the quilt or on our lives. He holds us together in a beautiful design, enclosing all the things that have made us into the product that you see.
The next time you look and admire a quilt, or a person, think about all that has gone into making it into the beautiful creation it is. Each one has its own story, if we would take the time to discover it.
~BJ Elder